


One Step Behind Your Memory

by Haberdasher



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Archivist Jonathan Sims, Background Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Comfort, Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Loss of Parent(s), Martin Blackwood Needs a Hug, Mild Hurt/Comfort, POV Jonathan Sims, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24096730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haberdasher/pseuds/Haberdasher
Summary: TMA fic building off the AU established in Yesterday Is Here, in which a post-season-5, married Jon and Martin go back in time to the pre-season-1 Archives to prevent the worst of the future from happening as it did in canon.October 2017: Martin’s mother dies, the second time around.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Jonathan Sims & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, x2 combo!
Comments: 30
Kudos: 490





	One Step Behind Your Memory

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Yesterday is Here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22230022) by [CirrusGrey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CirrusGrey/pseuds/CirrusGrey). 



Jon could tell that something was bothering Martin today. Martin wasn’t as able to focus on their shared research, to stay engaged with what the two of them still had left to do to help fix things, to avoid being distracted by anything and everything around them. Despite it otherwise seeming like a perfectly ordinary day--well, ordinary by _their_ standards, at least--Martin was... off, slightly, and thinking of it made Jon’s heart ache.

Jon wanted to know what was on Martin’s mind, wanted to know what he could do to help, but he knew better than to outright _ask_.

Instead, when Martin started trailing off his speech in the middle of a sentence for the third time that hour (not that Jon was counting), Jon simply pressed his hand against Martin’s and said, softly, “Martin?”

“Sorry, I got distracted again, uh-”

“No need to apologize, love.” Jon squeezed Martin’s hand gently. “I’m sure you’ve got a lot on your mind.”

“Yeah, today’s just... well, _today_. Makes it extra hard, I suppose.”

Without looking at the chart that he and Martin had compiled together of when everything had went to hell the first time around, Jon couldn’t remember what, if anything, had happened on today’s date before. He’d been in his coma at the time, though, that much he knew, so it could well be something he’d missed when it had happened.

“I can’t remember what happened today.” Jon confessed.

“You know, I’m not sure I ever _told_ you.” Martin’s face was growing redder by the moment. “It probably shouldn’t bother me this much-”

“But it still does.” Jon finished.

“Right, yeah.”

A moment passed where neither of them spoke, Jon staring down at their intertwined hands as he waited silently.

Then, finally, Martin’s voice, hardly louder than a breath, after a furtive glance at his younger counterpart: “Mum dies today.”

“Oh.” Jon’s voice was as hushed as his husband’s, and the arm that wasn’t already partly on top of Martin’s wrapped around him in a tight half-hug. “Oh, Martin, I’m so sorry.”

Martin just shrugged, but when Jon looked him in the eyes, he could see that Martin was trying to hold back tears.

“I don’t think that’s on the chart, we could have-”

Martin shook his head as he interrupted Jon. “No, no, we couldn’t have. Out of all the-” Martin let out a soft, bitter laugh. “-the supernatural boogie monsters that took over our lives, her dying is the one thing that was, well, _normal_. I mean, she was sick for a long time before she died; hell, there were times I didn’t think she’d last as long as she did.”

“...right.” Jon gently massaged Martin’s shoulder with his free hand. “But still.”

“But still.” Martin echoed, letting out a soft sigh before looking at his younger counterpart, careful to keep his voice low enough that they were unlikely to be overheard. “At 3:37 PM, he’s going to get a call from the nursing home... you know, the first time around, I actually let it go to voicemail.”

“ _Really_.” Jon couldn’t imagine that. For all the time he’d known Martin in the Archives, he’d had his phone on him (except when he hadn’t _had_ a phone), occasionally on vibrate but usually with the ringer on, scrambling to answer it whenever it rang, because few people had his number and those that did rarely called for innocuous reasons. There had been a time when he’d found it annoying, and a time when he’d found it endearing, and a time when he’d accepted that was just part of what made Martin Martin.

“Yeah, I was, was talking to Peter Lukas-”

Jon’s face must have revealed some of how he felt about Peter Lukas, because Martin interrupted his own explanation to add a quick “I know, I _know,_ ” before continuing.

“So, my phone was in my pocket and I could feel it vibrating, but I knew if I answered it he’d chew me out for it later, so I just... let it go. Wasn’t until a bit after that I thought to check who called, and they just. Left that in the voicemail. Waiting for me.”

“Oh, Martin. I’m so sorry.”

“‘s not _your_ fault.” Martin tilted his head to gesture towards his younger counterpart before adding, “Don’t think _he’ll_ let it go to voicemail, though.”

Jon had thought they’d managed to keep their voices low enough that the others wouldn’t notice, but either he was wrong on that count or that particular gesture was unsubtle enough to be noticed regardless, because at that moment younger Martin squinted at them and said, “Are you two talking about me over there?”

Martin’s face went red, and Jon could feel his own face heating up.

“Only nice things, we promise!” Martin-- _his_ Martin, _Jon’s_ Martin--replied.

Sasha glanced over at them before adding, “Nice things don’t usually need to be said in whispers.”

Jon jumped in this time. “They’re _complicated_ nice things.”

“Everything’s complicated with you two, isn’t it?” Tim said.

Jon and Martin snorted with amusement in sync at that one.

“Well, you’re not _wrong_.” Martin replied.

“Yeah, yeah.”

Jon waited for a long moment for the others to go back to their work before saying in a near-whisper, “We could tell him, you know. Before he gets the call.”

“What, and have him start grieving early? Have her death get wrapped up in all the rest of this?” Martin shook his head. “That sounds like a bad idea to me.”

“There has to be _something_ we can do, though. We can’t just... just sit here and wait for it to happen.”

“I mean, we _can_ , but...” Martin bit his bottom lip the way he did when he was trying to concentrate, and Jon stayed silent, not wanting to interrupt Martin’s train of thought, until Martin squeezed Jon’s hand and spoke up again. “Actually, you’re right, there _is_ something we can do.”

“A-”

Jon’s half-formed thought was interrupted by Martin shoving him over so that he could use their shared computer. Jon was pinned between Martin and the wall now, which might have been uncomfortable if it wasn’t Martin there, if it wasn’t his husband’s body pressed against his, soft and warm and right. He’d take that kind of uncomfortable any day.

Martin opened the Internet and entered a search term before looking back at Jon, who gave him a silent, tentative nod of approval.

They spent their time planning without speaking, thoughts shared with meaningful glances and with judicious use of the shared keyboard, and before long their plan was put into place.

3:37 came, and younger Martin’s phone rang, and he answered it on the second ring. Jon and Martin glanced at one another before eavesdropping on him mumbling through responses before ending the call and staring at his desk, eyes wide and unfocused.

Younger Jon was the first of the younger archival staff to approach Martin after the call ended; unsurprising, perhaps, given that those two were quickly growing almost as close as their older counterparts. (Though Jon and Martin would insist on that “almost”’ being there; there were certain connections only surviving an apocalypse together could bring about, after all.)

“Who was that on the phone?”

“The... home. My- my mother’s nursing home.” Young Martin’s hands shook along with his words, and he stopped to take a deep breath before adding, “She’s gone.”

“I’m so sorry, Martin.” Younger Jon wrapped his arms around younger Martin in a tight bear hug.

“I mean, it was always just a matter of time... and now she’s not, not _suffering_ at least...”

“It’s still a loss, though.” Younger Jon’s head was sitting on younger Martin’s shoulder, muffling his voice a bit. “You still deserve to grieve.”

“...thank you.”

Tim and Sasha exchanged a look before heading over to younger Martin’s desk and joining in the hug, wrapping their arms around younger Martin. Jon and Martin exchanged a look of their own before Tim waved them over, saying, “Get over here, it’s not a group hug without everyone joining in!” and they went along with his instructions.

“You guys, you don’t need to...” Younger Martin let his sentence trail off, and as Jon got closer, it became clear that his face was covered in tears.

“But we _want_ to.” Sasha said in a tone of voice that left no room for argument.

A long minute passed in silence with five pairs of arms all wrapped around Martin and each other, intermingled to the point where it was hard to tell whose limbs were whose, the silence only breached by younger Martin’s soft sniffles.

Then younger Martin looked up at Jon and Martin and said quietly, “You two, you, you _knew_ -”

Mercifully, that was when the deliveryman arrived in the archives, approaching the mass of hugging people with a bemused look on his face as he asked, “Delivery for one Martin Blackwood?”

Martin and younger Martin looked at one another before Jon pointed at the latter and said, “That’d be him.”

“Right, well, here you are. Just sign here.”

The group wordlessly took a collective step back, giving younger Martin the space needed to reach out and sign the receipt, though his signature was noticeably messier than normal, his hands shaking as he held the pen.

The bouquet was every bit as magnificent as Jon had hoped it would be. It was primarily blue and white, filled with bluebells because they were always Martin’s favorite flower and carnations because they were her favorite, with a few other flowers mixed in, some for meaning and others just because they looked nice. Jon had known it would be big, by the price tag (charged to the Institute’s credit card, thankfully) if nothing else, but it was one thing to know it and another to actually see the thing. The bouquet was comically huge, and when the deliveryman set it down before hurrying away, it took up a good half of younger Martin’s desk.

Younger Martin opened the card attached to it, a fairly generic “Sorry for your loss” card with the writing within revealing it to be from Blackwood and Sims, though he likely could have figured that much out regardless.

Then younger Martin pressed his hands against his face and made a noise that was half sob, half laugh, his body shaking with the sound that emerged.

Jon looked over at Martin and gave a slight nod of approval. Maybe the gesture wasn’t perfect, but it felt right just the same.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, consider following me on tumblr at [haberdashing](https://haberdashing.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
